


Pas de Deux

by Neyiea



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 06:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19043038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: Afterwards, when the spreading news of the Joker’s imprisonment in Arkham is taken as a sign that The Batman might actually be more than just a new urban legend, it seems as though everyone starts talking about who, or what, could possibly be behind the cowl.They don’t know what Joker knows.They don’t know that Batman is his true self, and Bruce Wayne is the mask.





	Pas de Deux

**Author's Note:**

> A little follow up to What's In a Name? because I am still all about future J and Bruce interactions. 
> 
> xoxo

The first proper Wayne Foundation Gala in years is set a few meager months after Bruce Wayne’s much anticipated return to the city. There have been whispers, ever since rumours began to circulate that he was finally coming home, about what the various criminals in Gotham would do if such an event were to finally take place. All of the Gotham elite in one location, drinking and congratulating themselves for holding positions of power or for being rich enough to be important, while the reinstated Prince of Gotham watched over his subjects and his kingdom.

There are so many who wanted to take advantage of this night when it was only speculation, who had planned to take advantage of this night once the date was finally set.

But Joker has his own plans, and he’d quickly put an end to anything that might have gotten in his way.

Bruce is back and has become all that he is meant to be, and Joker is going to make sure that this is a night that he’ll never forget. He, not some random assortment of crooks, is going to be what Bruce thinks of whenever this date comes up on his calendar. 

It’s easy enough to enlist a plethora of loyal low-lives, not nearly as eye-catching or attention-grabbing as he is, to help him ensure it.

This will technically only be their third time crossing paths since Bruce returned, but Joker has been keeping an eye on him ever since that first night where he’d slipped away before he could be carted back to Arkham. He’d kept an ear out for any significant criminal activity and had watched the overcast skies at night near the places where dark deeds were underway, and he’s managed to catch sight of The Batman—a growing Gotham urban legend—in action more than once.

And, of course, he’d had that little scuffle with Poison Ivy, who thought that she could put her hands all over something that wasn’t hers and not pay a price for it. It was one thing for his Batsy to play with others, he could handle a fair amount of roughhousing and it was fun to watch him work, but to see him subdued and forced to enact the whims of the plant witch?

Poison Ivy is on a list in his head, now. Right above The Riddler. 

But he’ll have time to make them scream later. For now he looks at the reflective walls of the service elevator and reapplies his lipstick. His smile is an unnerving, beautiful thing, and in the murky surface he can see some of his recruits shift uncomfortably.

The elevator dings, and his smile widens.

“I believe this is our floor,” he says as he steps out, raising his AK-107. “Remember to have fun, boys.”

He strolls into the ballroom where the Gala is taking place, and he fires into the roof.

The live orchestra stops. The screaming starts. His men enter in behind him with even more guns.

Joker scans the crowd for a familiar face and catches sight of it quickly. Bruce’s eyes are alight with something gorgeously dangerous as they stare back at him, but his expression shifts to perfectly mirror the panic of those around him before anyone else can realize that he alone is strikingly unafraid; forever the odd one out.

Joker flashes him a grin before launching into the speech he’d prepared just for the occasion. His eyes flit over the room, but they return to Bruce often enough to keep the man on his toes. Meanwhile his men get to work taking necklaces and watches, rings and cufflinks, anything of value that isn’t nailed down. 

The Gotham elite always dress up so well to show off to each other, and to try and one-up each other. Joker’s other half must already be so sick at having to pretend that he is one of them. 

He chortles and watches with a keen eye as Bruce removes his cufflinks and carefully puts them in the bag that’s been shoved in his direction.

When he lifts his eyes to meet Joker’s his face holds a grim promise of retribution.

And Joker. Cannot. Wait.

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” he says in closing after his men have gone around the whole room. “Let me give you something to remember me by.”

He points his assault rifle at the mayor and shoots. He’s dead before he hits the floor and the hysterical screaming starts up again.

Joker cackles as he runs back to the elevator. He feels eyes burning a hole into his back as his men follow after him, warning shots keeping the distraught masses cornered, and he casts one last glance behind him before Bruce disappears from his view.

“Holy shit,” one of his men is muttering. Joker vaguely recognizes him as the one who had gotten close to Bruce, the one who now holds something of Bruce’s on his person. “That actually worked, boss, holy shit.”

“You thought that it wouldn’t?” He masks his sudden irritation with friendly ease, letting the assault rifle hang by its shoulder strap so that he can put a free hand into his jacket pocket. 

“Not this smoothly. You sure are something, those rich assholes were quaking at the sight of us. It makes me wish I’d done even more to make them afraid, y’know?” He’s almost breathless with excitement. “Maybe even take a shot at the prodigal son himself, since I was standing so close to him that I could smell his overpriced cologne.” 

“Ah, a seeker of the spotlight like myself,” Joker remarks as his hand on the hilt in his pocket tightens. “Your ambitions could have taken you so far. It’s too bad, really.”

The man blinks in confusion, then warily opens his mouth to ask what he means, but Joker slits his throat before he can get any words out. His hands go up to the fatal wound, a poor attempt at stemming the sudden flow, and Joker takes the bag of stolen goods from him before it can soak up too much blood.

He falls to his knees, then onto his face, a gleaming red pool growing beneath him.

“You see; I’m the star of the show, and I won’t share center stage,” he says to the warm corpse, then he laughs. 

When he looks up at his other men he shrugs in the face of their obvious unease.

“One less portion to divide,” he says, as if in explanation. A few of them grin, how delightfully ruthless. “Oh, and try not to get ahead of yourselves. Don’t even think about doing anything that you haven’t been told to do.” 

He needs loyal underlings, not a bunch of upstarts.

He is the mastermind, and his word is law. 

The service elevator doors open to the basement garage and they scatter in all directions as they’d been instructed to, brushing past the fallen bodies of security guards on their way out. 

And Joker, well, he’s got something very special to get ready for.

It’s high time for him and Batman to have their first official dance. 

It takes almost an hour, which Joker impatiently believes is almost an hour too long, for him to be hunted down. When he hears a whoosh of air over his head his restless anticipation is finally appeased.

He licks his lips and smiles up at the darkness, then throws himself to the side as Batman leaps from a fire escape with a forceful vengeance that could have broken bones had Joker not been quick enough to slip away.

He laughs delightedly, and Batman springs up from his crouch to punch him across the jaw.

His head snaps back.

The taste of his own blood on his tongue only makes their confrontation that much sweeter.

Joker flings himself backwards as Batman drops down to kick his feet out from under him, and he takes the flower out of his breast pocket to toss it at Batman’s head. He pushes it aside with an instinctive flick of his wrist and it explodes against the grimy alley wall. It packs quite a punch for something so discreet. Deceptively delicate, with so much destructive capacity wrapped up in a pretty package. Joker is going to have to make more of them, eventually.

He even knows who he’ll playfully name them after.

Batman looks at the crumbling brick beside him and his face, though heavily shadowed, somehow becomes even more foreboding when he turns to look at Joker.

“Don’t be coy, Bats, I know exactly how you feel about my explosives.”

He flies forward again and Joker barely manages to dodge out of reach of his grasping hands while he pulls out his handgun. It won’t be enough to pierce through body armour and into flesh, but at this close of a range even with a protective covering Batman will bruise and ache from every hit.

And he’ll remember exactly who left him bruised and aching.

“I heard all about it, you know,” he tells Batman as he shoots, “about what you did to Wayne Tower while I was still truly asleep.” One bullet grazes his shoulder, another his torso. “I wish I could have seen it. Tell me, was it as glorious as I imagine? Or even better?” He runs out of bullets. He pulls out his knife. “How did it feel to carry out part of my plan? Did you enjoy it?”

Batman growls, and Joker shudders at the sound for reasons that have nothing to do with fear.

“You’re the silent type I see. Don’t worry, I can talk enough for the both of us.”

Batman ducks in, moving with a fluid grace that Joker has only seen from a distance until now, and it’s not long before the knife is wrenched out of Joker’s hands and dropped onto the concrete.

“Batsy!” He cackles as he’s roughly shoved against a wall “Don’t tell me you’re this mad about a pair of stolen cufflinks!” Batman is finally less than an arm’s reach away, close enough for Joker to take him in in all of his dark, menacing glory. “I would offer to return them to you, but, unfortunately—” He smiles. “—I’ve already swallowed them.”

The scowl on Batman’s face is a sight to behold. 

“You’re going back to Arkham tonight, Joker.”

Joker’s grin pulls wider at the sound of his name being formed by Batman’s mouth.

“Am I?” He giggles. “No, no, not quite yet.”

Batman’s hands dig into his upper arms hard enough to leave bruises. “It’s not up for discussion. You’re going even if I have to carry you the entire way there.”

“Oh, Bats,” he sighs breathily, “do you promise?”

Batman presses closer. 

Perhaps he doesn’t realize that Joker isn’t intimidated by the closeness like some of the others he’s faced would be. He keeps him in the dark—his natural habitat—for now and forces himself to sink against the wall as if the uptick in his heartbeat is from terror and not exhilaration. 

“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Gotham safe.”

Yes. Joker hadn’t expected that would change, and Gotham has become so very unsafe in the years that he’s been gone. He’ll have his work cut out for him.

And Joker plans to give him plenty to do. He is still the answer to his life’s question after all, even in the wake of all their time spent apart.

He licks his lips, anticipation for the future unfurling within him.

“Will you come quietly, or do I have to drag you there kicking and screaming?”

Joker hums, his eyelashes fluttering. “If I say no, are you going to tie me up and gag me?”

“No.”

In retrospect he probably should have expected the head-butt. 

When he does wake up, groggy and cuffed in the back of a police cruiser, he can’t help but chuckle.

He’s got his own work cut out for him as well, and Batman won’t take it easy on him.

Easy is not what he wants. No, he enjoys a challenge. He always has.

Arkham will be an interesting experience now that he doesn’t have to play catatonic. But he won’t be locked away for long, his mind is already whirling with fun new ideas and escape plans, and he has faithful followers on the outside eager to do his bidding. 

And once he’s out again he’ll arrange something even more spectacular for their second dance.

He thinks that they’re destined to do this forever. Push and pull. Give and take. Machinate and punish. There may be other villains in Gotham, but there is only one Joker, and he is the one who is destined to be Batman’s greatest enemy. 

He thinks of the feeling of Bruce’s neck underneath his lips after he had stopped him from following Ivy.

He thinks of the feeling of Batman pinning him, his gloved hands digging into muscle without remorse.

He thinks of the thrills that their future confrontations will hold. Masked, and unmasked. 

His anticipation, and his ambitions, only grow. 

They are going to have so much fun. 

_Together._


End file.
